He Who Laughs Last
by Seph Meadowes
Summary: God gives second chances even to the damned. Jonathan Morgenstern finds salvation in a drink of angel's blood, Isabelle Lightwood and himself. Sebastian/Jonathan-centric.
1. I

People always told him that the first thing you see when you die is 'the light' and you should go into that light. Problem is he doesn't see a light, not a spark, nothing, only darkness, empty pitch black darkness and it feels suffocating and he finds himself gasping for air that won't go into his lungs and his chest aches, his lungs burn and his heart starts beating so fast it feels like it's about to explode. He wants to cry out in pain but his voice is gone and no sound comes out of his mouth. He screams silently and gasps in pain because it hurts so much and yet he still doesn't let himself cry.

"That's enough theatrics, I think."

The unfamiliar voice cuts through the air and suddenly light overcomes the darkness, the golden lights giving warmth and glow to a small ballroom with mahogany floors, white tablecloth covered tables and large chandeliers on the ceilings. The room is practically the size of his childhood house in Idris and it takes him a moment to soak in the sights and colors…and the dead bodies on the floor.

Used to such things, he only blinks in confusion and wonders to himself why he was there.

"Don't just stand there, Jonathan, do sit down."

That's when he notices the woman sitting at the table near the large French windows that showed nothing but a dark, starless sky and he struggles not to shiver at the thought of the darkness he was momentarily in.

He takes steps slowly and cautiously, eyes on the back of the seemingly only live person in the room. Once he reaches the table, he finds himself looking into piercing grey eyes framed by a full heart-shaped face with lines that showed of age, the wisdom in her eyes are unmistakable. Her strawberry blonde hair pulled into a no-nonsense bun and her sensible black dress gives her an air of wealth, the bluntness and intelligence of a businesswoman.

He briefly stops his observations to take the proffered seat, her stormy wolf eyes never leaving his. Her gaze drops after a while but only because she's busy eating steak, nibbling on it delicately like she was the Queen of England. She speaks immediately after she swallows another miniscule bite.

"Pour me a glass, why don't you?" She speaks in slow, quiet and imperious tones. And when she gestures to the bottle of red wine near his elbow, he follows her order without thought. She takes a sip and he can't keep quiet anymore.

"Who are you?"

"Who do you think, Jonathan?" She settles down the glass on the table, her hands back to slicing up her meal. "Your body is currently lying on the river bank, a large hole in your chest and you're no longer breathing. Care to guess who I may be for appearing before you?"

The answer comes out almost as a question. "Death,"

"Very good, Jonathan. I was beginning to fear you had even less brain cells than I thought."

The insult rolls right of his back, irritation or even indignation giving away to another emotion. For the first time in his life, Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern, feels something aching to fear. It was a foreign emotion and one he decides he doesn't like in the least.

"Why am I here?" Much to his humiliation, his palms are shaking and damp but he inwardly congratulates himself for keeping his voice steady. But his voice wavers in the next question. "Are you going to take me to hell?" It comes out almost a whisper.

Piercing grey eyes burn with annoyance and the frown on her blood red lips deepen. "You have an high sense of your importance, don't you, Jonathan? You're too much like your father. I had to stop myself from laughing from all the things he told me when I met him."

The fear suddenly gives way to another unfamiliar emotion, dread, and he suddenly feels like he's going to throw up. His heartbeat continues to beat faster. "Valentine is-"

"-dead. Yes and quite irritatingly so, he's one of those types of men, miserable things that just can't accept." Her eyes are cold, ice chips that seem to see through his very soul…if he even has one. "I'm old, Jonathan, _very_ old and far more powerful than your ignorant little mind can possibly process. Beings like you and your father are _nothing_ but parasites to me. You cannot understand just how _insignificant _I think you are."

The indignation and anger he should be feeling is still nonexistent, the fear still winning over. A part of him, his instincts that kept him alive for as long as he did, tells him that this woman – whatever she was, could kill him with just the slightest movement of her pale hand. He could only feel helpless at the realization.

"Eat." She gestures to the plate of steak and mashed potatoes in front of him he didn't notice before. He only stares at the meal before him warily but those grey eyes stare at him expectantly and he picks up the silverware. He cuts the meat slowly, his hands shaking but he tightens his grip on the silverware lest they fall. The steak tastes delicious, he included, with his first bite. He chews slowly, savoring the flavor of red meat before he swallows. Those grey eyes continue to watch him.

"Good, isn't it?" He only nods and she seems pleased. "I suppose you want to know why I haven't dragged you off to meet again with that foolish man you call your father?" He doesn't understand why she has to keep insulting him and Valentine but he wisely keeps his mouth shut. "God has made a deal with me, Jonathan. For some reason, I can only fathom why, he wants to give you a second chance."

He's immediately filled with confusion and the fear subsides a bit. "Why?"

"How should I know? God is like a man in his fifties who still lives with his mother and does nothing but type away on his laptop. The man works in ways I don't bother to understand. He's always been that way."

"I just have to ask, how old are you?"

"Neither God nor I can remember but I do have the inkling that I'm older. It doesn't matter, I suppose, in the end everything has to die."

"Even God?"

"Even God."

He doesn't know what to think about that, he just pours himself a glass of wine and takes a long sip, the bitter taste sticks to his taste buds. "You say God wants to give me a second chance?"

"That's what I said."

"What's the catch?" He may be a lot of things but a fool isn't one of them. Valentine raised him with the philosophy that nothing in life is for free, there's always a price.

"You'll be human this time." She continues at his look of puzzlement. "You were practically a demon before. _He_ wants to know how you fare as something less…beastly."

His throat suddenly feels dry and he takes another drink of wine to try and alleviate it.

"I'm sure you can already feel it, the vulnerability, the emotions, that irritating sense of being _human_. It's already starting and you can't stop it."

He feels like panicking, a part of him, that demon part of him fighting for survival. "What if I don't want to be human? What if I'd rather stay dead? Don't I have a say in this?"

Her eyes seemed to say "you foolish little boy". "Don't be difficult, Jonathan. Free will is just an illusion, you all follow what's destined in the end." She pushes a goblet towards him, inside is a liquid that seems to glow both red and gold. "This is to speed up the process. It's from Raziel himself. Now be a good boy and drink up."

He wants to protest, to scream, the panic and fear overcoming him but he knows it's futile. He could feel it. He's already becoming more human by the second. That dark part of him, that feeling of power and invulnerability is quieter, subdued and in moments will be gone.

"_Drink_." She says more forcefully and pushes the goblet closer towards him. He looks into those cold, grey eyes, seeing absolutely nothing in them but _darkness_ and his shaking hand reaches for the goblet.

He can't explain the taste exactly but it felt like liquid fire, burning him from the inside out but it doesn't hurt. It felt good, he felt _happy_. And with a smallest sense of misery, one that's quickly overtaken by the joy from the angel blood, he realizes that the process is complete.

He is human.

"Time to wake up now, Jonathan."

Those are Death's last words to him before he opens his eyes and wakes to the bright sun, the air finally entering his lungs.

* * *

**Death's appearance is based on Kate Burton while Death's personality is based on Julian Riching's character in Supernatural. Some dialogue in the chapter was taken and revised from the Supernatural episode, "Two Minutes to Midnight". **


	2. II

They find him exactly three days after he's awaken. At first, they chain him with flaming handcuffs and kept him inside his cell, only letting him out to ask him questions. They aren't very happy with his answers since he absolutely refuses to cooperate. That earns him kicks in the guts and blows to his face but he does not fight them – _something_ holds him back, whether it's the angel blood in his veins or his new found conscience he doesn't know.

All he knows is that he lacks the same taste for destruction and death as he once has and it isn't stopping anytime soon.

He's noticed the changes in him as soon as he's woken up from his meeting with Death.

Firstly, he isn't as strong and fast as he once was. No longer as invincible as he once thought he is even though he was still fairly stronger and faster than the average Nephilim. Second, he could _feel_. It's a constant mix of emotions that he used to be numb to from fear to anger to resentment to hate to worry to anguish to guilt to loneliness and then blessedly, neutral emotions like numbness and compliancy.

He is worrying and in fear of dying every moment he is imprisoned in Idris, feeling that vulnerability of being human every second he is there. And he is angry and resentful of the Nephilim who treated him subhuman, like he isn't a person even. He is anguished over his father's death - He loves the man he realized, he loves his father and now he was gone. And he has no one now, he feels lonely, he is all alone.

On his seventh day of imprisonment and his tenth day of his second life, they take him into the same interrogation room they've been bringing him to and they make him seat with his hands blistering and chaffing with the flaming cuffs. He sighs to himself once they leave the room and he twitches as he needs to scratch his elbow.

Damn them all.

The door creaks open and a petite redhead enters. He knows her immediately – Clary. He hasn't thought about his sister ever since he last saw her and that feels like a lifetime ago, maybe it is. It's a different lifetime for him.

"They wanted me to talk to you," She explains as the door locks and she continues to stand by the door, in order to make a quick escape if she needs it. "They think you might be more compliant to talk to me."

He blinks and gestures to the seat across from the table from his. She looks uncertain before she steps forward and takes the seat. "Don't worry, I can't hurt you." He lifts up his hands to show the cuffs. "I can't even if I wanted to."

"Don't you want to?" She's curious and a little bit confused.

"I used to," He concedes. "But not anymore,"

Her brow furrows. "Why not?"

He shrugs. "Recent developments?"

He doesn't really want to talk about this and he figures aloofness might get her off his back. He wants to go back to his cell now, please where it was quiet and he didn't have to answer his sister's questions.

She presses on. "Like what?"

_Like the fact that I have a conscience now and I'm so sorry…_

"I'm sorry," He blurts out before he can stop himself. "For everything. I didn't know what I was doing was wrong. In fact, it was the only right I knew -but that doesn't excuse it- I'm so sorry for what I did to you and what I tried to do to you and…and…" He shuts his mouth before he could make a fool of himself even more.

Clary is balking at him, eyes wide, and mouth wide open. He almost wants to laugh at her expression but the guilt is still fresh and he keeps his face neutral but questioning as he waits for her to react. "You're…_sorry_?" She finally utters out.

"Yes," He nods. "I'm sorry." He repeats.

Maybe if he says it enough times she'll forgive him. _Maybe_. He can only hope. All this shame and guilt overcomes him, he keeps remembering all those terrible, horrific things he's done and he can't get pass it. He needs to say sorry to so many people but right now, he could begin with his sister.

She's speechless. "But…how…_you're sorry_?"

The disbelief and shock is so clear on his face, he closes up like a flower closes its petals. He doesn't want to see her anymore and see the lack of trust and then the fear and resentment she has for him but he should've expected worse, after all he's done after all.

"But _why_?"

He swallows his uncertainty and continues. "I've done so many horrible things and I can only ask for your forgiveness for all that I've done. I know I'm not a good person and I just want to say sorry. _I'm so, so sorry."_

She looks him in the eye for a moment, tight lipped and completely silent before she gets up. "I can't handle this." She turns away and walks out the door, a guard coming in later to escort him to his cell.

He stares at the cracks of the floor and ceiling and counts as his mind goes numb from all the numbers filling his head but he keeps on because he feels that he might just go insane if he doesn't keep his mind working. He wakes up at dawn and is escorted by another guard to the same interrogation room.

Clary has come back and this time she has the angel boy with her. They're whispering to each other and Jace sends him a distrustful look (couldn't blame him) before Clary takes the lone seat opposite him and Jace stands by the door.

"Sebastian-" She changes her mind. "Jonathon, I think you should tell me what happened while you were gone those past few months."

"I don't really know how to explain,"

And it's the truth. How could he even begin to explain?

"Just try."

He glances at the blond boy standing there by the door and he's just filled with the biggest urge to apologize again or punch him in the face he didn't know. All those dark emotions he'd always felt about the angel boy come up again. All that anger he'd over the years with having to share his father with this weak, little boy reimburse.

"_We should've been raised as brothers," He remembers the boy telling him._

Maybe he was right or wasn't he? He was his enemy or was he? He didn't know. He was too confused.

He looks back at Clary and he sees that glimmer of hope in her eyes. Like for a moment she actually thought he was human, that he could be saved. Was he? Was he human now?

He opened his mouth and began to explain. "It all started after the day at the river, I woke up in this ballroom…"

After his explanation, Clary is looking very much shocked and Jace sneered at him from the wall, glaring daggers at him.

"I see," Clary says.

Jace moves away from the wall and closer to them. "Oh come on, you can't possibly believe him!" He shouts. "He's lying! That didn't happen! He can't be-"

"Human?" Clary supplied. "But look at him, Jace, what else am I supposed to believe? He's not so…evil, anymore? It's like he's a completely different person."

"It's all an act!" He protests. "He's playing us! Like he did before when he pretended to be Sebastian Verlac."

Jonathon can't really blame Jace's doubt. After all, he's done who would believe him? Would no one believe him? Is he doomed to be in this cell with this guards watching over him for the rest of eternity?

Is he still really a monster?

Clary looks at the ground, chewing her lip and Jace explodes. "You actually believe him? You believe he's changed? That God really gave him a second chance and with a drink of angel's blood he's all fine and dandy now? It's too unbelievable! Think, Clary, you can't let him fool you!"

Clary looks between her brother and Jace in conflict before she stands up and walks out of the room. Jace watches her go before slamming his fists down the table and staring Jonathon in the eye. "She may believe this act you've got going on but I sure as hell haven't forgotten who you are! I'm watching you and I'll be waiting for you to slip up and prove to everyone that you're still that monster that you really are!"

Then he finally leaves the room, leaving Jonathon to ask himself one very important question as he's escorted back to his cell.

_Am I a monster?_ He asks himself. _Am I?_

He falls asleep wondering with guilt heavy on his heart.

* * *

**So, after many months of contemplating how to tackle this I've finally reached an understanding. This is probably the hardest story I've ever written but reading some very interesting works like Fallen by Cyropi and Dream Machine by riptey have inspired me. Hope you liked it and please review.**


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